These are October pictures – the Sussex Prairie Garden is closed now until June 1st 2024. But, as you can see, the season goes out with a blaze of colour – really spectacular place to wander around in, way more impressive than I was expecting – very calm, relaxed surroundings, definitely to be recommended for next year. It is a ‘new’ garden, designed and planted in the 20th and 21st centuries in West Sussex. It now claims to be the largest ‘prairie’ garden in Britain with 8 acres containing 35,000 plants – all apparently put there by friends and family of the owners! Quite a vision.
I had a magic afternoon, turning corner after dramatic corner – almost enough to get us through the grim grey that seems to have surrounded us ever since in the UK – and plenty of ideas for those dye baths!
Another National Trust house with fabulous gardens. Feeling a bit nostalgic about this one – for some years I’ve been a regular visitor. It’s been a useful (calming) stopover coffee place on my way to visit my parents, and more recently to help clear my childhood home. But now that the house is dealt with and my mother has moved into residential care many miles away, I no longer have any reason to be in this part of the country. It all feels pretty strange – but at least it’s not so overwhelming as clearing out the belongings of someone who has died.
For me, Hinton Ampner (near Winchester) is mostly about the gardens – but the house is pretty too. It is on a smaller, more domestic scale than a lot of NT places, so it is perfectly possible to imagine living there. That drawing room has wonderful windows with fabulous views on two sides – and those sofas are very enticing!
Not sure where this is all heading (geometric quilts? twisted stitch patterns? more dye bath possibilities?) but the pictures I am taking at the moment, from street scenes to modern art, seem to be full of lines – if not always straight ones!
I had hoped to get some decent autumn shots this year, but between the relentless grey gloom, family events at weekends and finally storm Cieràn seeing off the leaves, it doesn’t seem likely. Sheffield Park (National Trust, about 20 miles away) is probably our closest reliably dramatic woodland -some years it can be spectacular. I took these a few seasons ago.
I think it’s the lake reflections that do the trick! This was actually the photo that inspired the knitwear in the centre of the first set of pictures.
Struggling as usual with WP – and now, at nearly midnight, I have a choice of sneaking out of Blogvember after one week, or just marking a place with the photos I posted on Etsy earlier.
Hand warmers remain a mystery to me. Of course, I understand about seasonal fluctuations (though actually on a global platform like Etsy it is always winter somewhere ….) but I have noticed that sales of hand/wrist warmers follow a curious pattern. Once they start to sell, they simply fly away – followed by what can be a lengthy lull. Must be something about fashion – which is something I am more than happy to ignore.
This lot don’t look as if they’ve gone too far astray… I’m pretty sure they are Suffolks, despite being photographed in a field in East Sussex. I do know people who are very knowledgeable about sheep care and breeding – but I confess to being less interested in the animal than in its fleece. Like many spinners, I like to work with Wensleydales (long, crimped locks, rasta looking!) and Blue faced Leicesters (again, long and lustrous staples). Imported Merino tops are always soft. Local Jacobs are not, but make up for it by having such lovely colour patches. The Lake District Herdwicks are plucky little animals, hardy in the snow but with wiry fleece only usually used for carpets. The traditional flock near me are Southdowns, not nearly so numerous as they were but now being re-introduced to keep the Downs well cropped. They have a short staple which can be a pain to spin, but their fleece dyes well. There are many other breeds – including interesting rare ones. I once had fun knitting a series of hats from as many different breeds as I could get hold of to spin. I did not dye any of these – sometimes it’s good to let the sheep dictate the colours!
I fully intended to post pictures of the breeds I have mentioned – but with my current internet setup that would take me half the night, so I will have to let you Google them.
Sad sock story alert.
Every now and again I have a crazy sock week, when I can’t stop myself racing away on tiny 2.5mm circulars. This last one did not end well, however. I can’t wait to see those patterns emerging from the magic sock yarns – but I am destined never to know what that middle one would have been like. I had been knitting it on a car journey (as a passenger, don’t worry!) When it was time to come home I grabbed the knitting off the car seat and got back into it – only to run out of wool within seconds. Took me a while to realise that I had in fact slammed the car door on the 100g ball, which had chopped it off neatly and deposited it somewhere along the road. The wool was beautifully soft and silky – but I can’t track it down anywhere on the internet, not even on Ravelry. Those sock wools go in and out of production every season. I am well over it now (and have dozens of alternative sock yarns waiting their turn in my stash, including my own hand dyed ones). The only thing that rankles though – I had JUST FINISHED turning the heel….
SpinningStreak 